Social media has the immense power to transform any idea into a viral message that can span across continents and demographics, uniting people and inspiring them to take action. However, this power is so often used to spread the latest celebrity gossip or debate the colour of a dress, but what if we could harness this power to do something great that has a positive impact on the world around us?

Harnessing the
Power of Social toChange The World

This is exactly what Doug Frye, president and global CEO of Colliers International, had in mind when he envisioned the plan for the highly successful Everyone Gives social media campaign that launched February of 2012. Colliers International is one of the world’s largest commercial real estate firms. The company is focused heavily on social responsibility and they have a long history of philanthropy within various communities world-wide.

Everyone Gives became the largest social giving campaign the world had ever seen.

The Global Impact

The campaign raised more than 700,000 USD in just 17 days(Feb 22- Mar 9 2012)

Participants in 64 countries made donations of varying sizes to their charity of choice

The campaign was supported by thousands of people including Britain’s former Prime Minister Tony Blair whose organization the Tony Blair Faith Foundation was a major partner

More than 12,000 individuals in 474 cities donated to 1,479 charities

The campaign was sponsored by the World Economic Forum and other large organizations

100 percent of the donations received went directly to the charities selected by the public, which ranged from well-known non-profits to small,local charities

“It’s not about how much you donate, it’s about making a difference by engaging as many people as possible in the act of giving. While none of us can solve the world’s challenges on our own, Everyone Gives helps us see how much we can do when we all work together.”

– Tony Blair, Former British Prime Minister

Discover how Tony Blair got involved in the Everyone Gives Campaign with his organization The Tony Blair Faith Foundation

Any great accomplishment starts with a seed (the raw idea) and with the right foundation and nurturing it grows into a successful achievement. Doug and his team at Colliers International, including David Bowden, CEO of Colliers International Canada, planted the seed for Everyone Gives by coming up with a revolutionary concept.

The Giving
Tree Vision

Through creating an online portal on the Everyonegives.org website, participants made a donation for as little as $5 to a charity of their choice

Participants would then share this activity and invite others to give to their charity or another charity of their choice through Twitter, Facebook or email

As people made donations, the original requester’s “giving tree” – a virtual online tree – would begin to sprout and grow.

Participants could then track the growth of their “giving tree” through their portal

Any charitable organization could register themselves through the Everyonegives.org website

This was a fantastic and powerful idea – giving gone viral. However, Colliers International needed to ensure that they designed a solid technology infrastructure for the project in order to ensure its success.

TechBlocks –Leading the Charge

To make their vision for Everyone Gives a reality, Colliers needed a technology vendor that would not only be up for the challenge but could deliver what was needed in the tight deadlines and have the technology and business savvy to make sure the entire campaign ran smoothly. TechBlocks fit this criteria and was selected as the primary technology sponsor for the campaign.

TechBlocks was commissioned as the primary technology partner for and worked diligently with the Colliers team as well as other big name partners, such as AT&T and Slalom Consulting, to understand the campaign concept and then ensure the right technology systems were in place for the Everyone Gives campaign to hit the ground running.

In just 6 months, TechBlocks helped to create a global charitable donation engine that included:

Complete website development, from concept to launch, for the EveryoneGives.org website

Development of an online portal where participants and registered charities could track and monitor funds distribution and growth

UI/UX design for website and portal

Back-end database development and integration with website to manage individual giving trees and participating charitable organizations

Creation of a registration system for charitable organizations who wanted to participate

Designing a media toolkit to recruit major corporate sponsorship

Gaining Momentum:

Gaining Momentum: Before the technology system could be developed, the campaign needed financial support in order to hit the ground running. TechBlocks was involved in generating interest and gaining the corporate sponsorship needed for the campaign to take flight. We supported these efforts by designing the media toolkit to tell the Everyone Gives story in front of the World Economic Forum and other major organizations to promote participation. These toolkits were also used to promote corporate giving programs within large organizations.

Technology:

The campaign and the technology behind it leveraged the immense power of social media and a custom built web portal leveraging the DNN CMS platform to have a huge impact that was felt across the globe.

Behind the scenes, the campaign required a massive database to:
– Store user data and activity
– Track the growth of each individual giving tree
– Track the allocation of funds between the charities involved
– Integrate with social sites for login, sharing, and connections

The TechBlocks team built this robust database in the .Net platform with MS SQL database in the backend.

Focus on User Experience

A huge part of the Everyone Gives success lies in the fact that all of the systems TechBlocks built for the campaign focused on providing participants with a user friendly experience. By seamlessly integrating social platforms that the majority of the world was already using, the online portal was both easy and intuitive – the necessary ingredients for any successful technology endeavour or viral campaign.